floppy drive

[attilathehun1]

I replaced a faulty floppy drive with a new floppy drive. When I go to device
manager it says the drive is working properly. It doesn't recognize floppies
though. I put a floppy disc into it and it says to " please insert a floppy
disc into A drive". There is already a floppy disc into A drive and it gives
that message with any floppy that I put into it. Why is it not recognizing
floppies? It ejects a floppy normally.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, attilathehun1

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I replaced a faulty floppy drive with a new floppy drive. When I go to
device
manager it says the drive is working properly. It doesn't recognize
floppies
though. I put a floppy disc into it and it says to " please insert a
floppy
disc into A drive". There is already a floppy disc into A drive and it
gives
that message with any floppy that I put into it. Why is it not recognizing
floppies? It ejects a floppy normally.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, attilathehun1

Can you boot the machine with a Win98 boot diskette
from www.bootdisk.com?

 

[attilathehun1]

Why would I want to try and boot my PC with a Win98 bootdisk, when it's
running Windows XP Home edition and there is nothing wrong with my PC. It's
the floppy drive that I'm having the problem with.
Maybe I'm missing something here. I would greatly appreciate if you filled
me in on what your getting to. I might learn a great lesson here from you.
Thanks, attilathehun1

 

[Opinicus]

I replaced a faulty floppy drive with a new floppy drive. When I go to
device
manager it says the drive is working properly. It doesn't recognize
floppies
though. I put a floppy disc into it and it says to " please insert a
floppy
disc into A drive". There is already a floppy disc into A drive and it
gives
that message with any floppy that I put into it. Why is it not recognizing
floppies? It ejects a floppy normally.

Are these floppies new? Or were they recorded by a different drive?

 

[philo]

Why would I want to try and boot my PC with a Win98 bootdisk, when it's
running Windows XP Home edition and there is nothing wrong with my PC. It's
the floppy drive that I'm having the problem with.
Maybe I'm missing something here. I would greatly appreciate if you filled
me in on what your getting to. I might learn a great lesson here from you.
Thanks, attilathehun1

You were given that advice so it could be determined if the problem is with
your operating
system or with your hardware (possibly just not set in the bios)

If the machine can boot with a win98 floppy, then the problem is in the OS
If it cannot boot with the floppy it's a H/W problem

 

[Daave]

If you are successful in booting off the floppy, then you will know your
floppy drive is fine (which means you will need to fix your problem via
Windows). If not, then you know you have a hardware issue, so you would
need to recheck connections or check your BIOS settings or replace your
floppy drive.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Why would I want to try and boot my PC with a Win98 bootdisk, when it's
running Windows XP Home edition and there is nothing wrong with my PC.
It's
the floppy drive that I'm having the problem with.
Maybe I'm missing something here. I would greatly appreciate if you filled
me in on what your getting to. I might learn a great lesson here from you.
Thanks, attilathehun1
--

Trouble-shooting is often the art of elimination of possible
causes. Philo and Daave gave you the perfect answer why
a test with a floppy boot disk would tell you a lot.

 

[attilathehun1]

No, they are not new floppies, they old ones with data already on them. You
think by replacing the old floppy drive that I might have to go into BIOS and
configure the new floppy drive (A)? There is only one spot for a floppy and
there isn't even a spot for a zip drive. I would have to get a new case if I
wanted to put more than one floppy drive or a zip drive in this PC.
When I first installed the new drive it said couldn't format the diskette.
The green light did come on also. Now though I'm getting no light at all. And
I don't even get an option to eject when I right click on the drive icon in
My Computer when a diskette is in it.
Thanks, attilathejun

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

No, they are not new floppies, they old ones with data already on them.
You
think by replacing the old floppy drive that I might have to go into BIOS
and
configure the new floppy drive (A)? There is only one spot for a floppy
and
there isn't even a spot for a zip drive. I would have to get a new case if
I
wanted to put more than one floppy drive or a zip drive in this PC.
When I first installed the new drive it said couldn't format the diskette.
The green light did come on also. Now though I'm getting no light at all.
And
I don't even get an option to eject when I right click on the drive icon
in
My Computer when a diskette is in it.
Thanks, attilathejun

How did you go with the simple floppy boot test?

 

[attilathehun1]

Ok, Bingo! I went into BIOS and reset the order of the floppy drive from 4th
place to 1st place. The order used to be removable drive, hard drive, CD-ROM
drive, and then network boot drive or something close to network boot drive,
which I figured out was the floppy drive. So now the order is network boot
drive, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, and then removable drive. I saved it in BIOS
and then the drive recognized my first floppy diskette.
One thing though, I busted the button that you push to remove the diskette
from the floppy. Figured, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
I wondering if I can send away for a front panel from HP. The PC was a HP
pavilion 503n. So I figure HP must have a front plate for this PC case?
Well, now I know when I change a floppy drive I might have to go into BIOS
if I'm having problems and configure something.
Thanks, attilathehun1

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The boot order should have no effect on the machine recognising
your floppy disk drive. However, there are other BIOS settings
that determine what type of drive you have. They are important!

 

[Panic]

Perhaps the disk is not formatted or is formatted in a manner your computer
doesn't recognize. Put your floppy disk in the drive and go to A: drive in
Windows Explore. Right click it and choose Format. This will insure the
floppy is formatted properly for your computer. Let us know if this helps.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

It should matter if an OS is installed on the hard drive. If so, the floppy
and cd drives should be ahead of the hdd or they will never be checked for
bootable media.

 

[Opinicus]

No, they are not new floppies, they old ones with data already on them.

Can these old floppies be read on a different computer?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

"Checking for bootable media" is not the same thing
as "recognising disks in the FDD", which was the
OP's problem. When I place my FDD last in the BIOS
boot order then the machine will not normall boot off it,
yet Windows will readily access any floppy disk
I happen to insert.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I understand the issue. All I am saying is that if the floppy is bootable
it still will not boot the computer unless the fdd is ahead of the hdd in
the boot order (unless there is no OS on the hdd).

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

.. . . except that the OP claims to have resolved his FDD access
problem by changing the boot order.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

It should matter if an OS is installed on the hard drive. If so, the floppy
and cd drives should be ahead of the hdd or they will never be checked for
bootable media.

My view is different. I think that the hard drive should be kept first
in the boot order. I don't want the floppy or CD drive to be checked
to boot from. I hardly ever want to boot from one of those, and if I
do, I'll temporarily change the boot order then. I don't want to try
to boot from a floppy or CD accidentally left in the drive. It will
generate an error message if it's not bootable, but if it is bootable
(especially a floppy) it could have undesired consequences. For
example, although boot sector viruses are much less common these days
than they used to be, it's always possible that one could turn up on a
floppy. If the floppy is first in the boot order, and such a diskette
has been left in the drive, you're infected.